One Sunday when I was too sick to go to church -- and by "sick" I mean so completely overcome with depression that I could not even find strength to remove my body from bed. That Sunday, Jerry asked our Sunday School class to pray for me. Later that week, I received a note from a lady, whom I did not know by name, and she was trying to encourage me.
I wasn't encouraged. I did not want to hear her words. I didn't care what SHE might have experienced in HER life because this was MY life and NO ONE could possibly understand what I was going through.
That was my attitude. So I ignored the card.
The first few days after Amanda and Monica went to school I was a mess. I could barely function and what little I forced myself to do was not only a huge effort, I was annoyed that it had to be done - -like --showering! My husband and son tried to encourage me. Zachary tried to be funny and kind and caring. Jerry kept telling me he understood my heart but how does a man understand the heart of a mother? He kept telling me he was sad too but did his life come to a halt? Did he want to live out the rest of his life underneath the covers on our bed? DID HE EVER CARRY A CHILD IN HIS WOMB FOR NINE MONTHS? Yeah see, us Mom's always try to trump a father's heart with that one.
I tried to tell myself I was carrying on much too much and much too far and yet; it's all my heart would feel. I couldn't stop the pain. I couldn't stop the depression. I couldn't stop the uselessness my heart felt.
And then each day got a little better. I never stopped missing the girls and I never stopped hurting, but I at least got back to functioning and taking ever so slight steps towards letting go. When the dark cloud of depression finally lifted, I was seeing more clearly and then I remembered the card.
I went back to the card I had received in the mail and read it again and this time, it was such a blessing. I read it as if for the first time and my heart was instantly comforted knowing another mother's heart felt the same thing. As hard as my guys tried to console me and as much as I did appreciate it, it wasn't the same as another mother that had lived through the same thing.
So I set out to find this angel that God sent me -- a woman who was living out Titus 2 when Paul instructs Titus, "Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children . . . "
This was a lesson I was learning in loving my children. I had to learn to love them at a whole different level - -to mix my love with respect of their adult status, to love them enough to let them go, to love them enough to trust them to live their own lives. This was a new love, a different love and by example and compassion, this woman came into my life and helped me see my way through it.
I took my card to bible study one Saturday and asked the other ladies if they could please point this woman out to me. The next day at church, I finally found out who my angel was. That evening, I went up to her and thanked her for her card and her encouragement.
The week after Thanksgiving, she came up to me and said how happy she was to see my girls were home for the holiday. I was so touched she remembered and rejoiced with and for me. I felt a moment of being kindred with her and it felt like it was my final lesson in my learning to let go.
Tonight after choir practice, I got to talk to her again. When I explained to her all the blessings I'm now finding in this new freedom with the girls gone; more time with my son, rediscovering my husband, a quiet peaceful home, time to do things I enjoy - she instantly understood me and in fact, on several occasions, we were able to finish each others' sentence. I stood amazed as if in a peculiar way, I was talking to myself. That’s just how completely she understood me.
And so in my quest to open my heart and my eyes for all those blessings the Lord sends my way, I am ever so thankful for my angel, Sonda.
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